Global Warming Cause – It’s The Water Vapor Stupid!!!!!!

Eat this, Warmists!!!!!

“Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapor near the surface. But this is different — it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect,” says Susan Solomon, NOAA senior scientist and first author of the study.

More here.  How many times have we been lectured that water vapor doesn’t matter in Climate Change because it’s a constant  and doesn’t change enough to affect variations?  Not only does this peer reviewed paper shed light on the probability of water vapor’s important causal role in the increase in temps from 1980 to 2000, but in also explains why the current stall in the increase of temps may be happening. Most of us “Deniers” are not dismissing that CO2 is a green house gas, what we dismiss is that “The Science Is Settled” and that CO2 is the All Powerful Oz when it comes to all things climate.

Thought Of The Day – On The Political Partys

Both sides have plenty of big money. The difference is that Conservatives are united behind a few simple ideas, and liberals are a group of divergent people united behind a few simple ideals. The former is much easier to craft into policy than the latter.

Andrew Sullivan Just Jumped The Sharks… ALL OF THEM!

Two names that should NEVER be compared as being anywhere similar in leadership abilities – Thatcher and Pelosi!   Oh sure, the “rhetorical style could easily have come out of Maggie’s mouth” as Andrew says. But style is easily copied; I do it here all the time. And lets face it, Pelosi is not exactly known for being a very competent “rhetorical stylist” when it comes to verbal skills. Either she got lucky here, or she got a better speech writer. Either way, one thing is for sure – Thatcher was a competent and dynamic leader. Pelosi has demonstrated herself to be anything but. If this WAS Thatcher, health care reform would have passed a month before the original deadline. Pelosi is definitely no Thatcher!

OMG – New Fantastic Favorite Web Site Alert!

Ridiculous Infomercial Review!…

… And Blog.

Nothing else needs to be said.

Headlines We’d Like To See – Obama Apologizes To Supreme Court, Asks For Beer Summit!

Seeking to quell the controversy over his Wednesday comments on the recent Supreme Court decision, President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to the White House briefing room this afternoon.

Associated Press

“I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Supreme Court or Justice Kennedy specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently,” Obama told reporters.

At his primetime State Of The Union address Wednesday, Obama said the Supreme Court acted stupidly regarding the Citizen United vs the FEC,  and the decision will “open the floodgates” of spending for corporations and foreign companies and other special interests in reversing a century. One Supreme Court justice, Samual Alito, shook his head as if to say the court acted appropriately.

UPDATE 4:06 p.m.: In a statement, the White House said Obama spoke with Justice Kennedy this afternoon at 3:15 p.m. “They had a positive discussion during which the president told Kennedy about his call with Judge Alito and statement to the media,” reads the statement. Obama has invited Kennedy, Alito and the other Supreme Court justices  to a meeting at the White House for a beer summit “in the near future.”

Note:  Original story content borrowed from: WSJ

PS. I’ve been Patriot-lanched!

Tea Party Convention…. FAIL! / UPDATE

(Originally posted on Jan 18)

For a movement that is supposed to be based on the idea of being  fiscally frugal, I’m not sure that charging double what the other political conventions charge, and filing as a for-profit corporation, and barring news organizations that are not in your pocket ideologically, sends the right message. I’m not accusing anyone of doing anything wrong, it just doesn’t  look good. Sooner or later, this Tea Party movement is going to develop into a true political party, and these actions will come back to bite them.

UPDATE:   Well, that didn’t take long.

President VS The Supreme Court

Yes He Did!.  Your big government policies weren’t a bad start, but dude, if this is the way you really feel; if you really don’t like the make-up of the Supreme Court and want to further emulate FDR, you gotta try and expand it by a few seats. That’ll fix this right up!

PS. If the floodgates to the Sacramento Delta were as closed as the floodgates of special interest money in Washington, the West Side farmers would be complaining about the flooding last year instead of the government created drought.

How To Get Out Of Serving On A Jury??? Tell The Truth (to power)

First, let me say that I have never served on a jury, and am one of those rare individuals who would like to.  Yes, I am a strange animal….  Insane really! If, unlike me, you are normal and don’t want to, here is a tale of how a friend managed to get dismissed from having to fulfill his civic duty.

Jim, my proudly socialist band-mate, went to jury selection yesterday. As an experienced juror several times over, he was in no mood to serve on a jury this time around.  Unhappily, he got through the first round of the selection process, and, given that he had served as a foreman on another jury, was looking more and more likely to be selected this time. The solution? Just tell the court truthfully who you are and what you stand for. Here, paraphrased, is a representation of the rant that freed him from the burden of jury duty:

“Look, I’ve done this several times, and quite honestly, I don’t feel like having to spent my time having to excuse all the lying that goes on in a courtroom, especially from those two….”

Gasps are heard throughout the courtroom as Jim points to defense and prosecution benches. Jim swears the prosecutor smiled just a little.

“And what kind of court system do we have anyway when the let Exxon Mobile get away with destroying the environment and make billions upon billions after the Valdez, and yet some guys trying to make a few bucks selling medical marijuana during a recession get shut down by some stupid judge…”

Even louder gasps from the courtroom as, unknown to Jim until that moment, he was standing in front of the judge in Fresno who recently issued the ruling that effectively shut down the pot dispensaries in Fresno.  Jim, being Jim, now knowing that this is that judge, went on to tell the judge that he has a medical marijuana card and that the judges action has interfered with his ability to get his legal medication.

I’m not sure if I got all the nuances right in the retelling of the event. But, oh, to have been a fly on the wall!!!  And, for those who don’t know Jim, this may sound like it’s a made-up story. For those that DO know him, it’s well within the range of probability. Anyway, needless to say, Jim will not be serving as juror this time around.

Meme Watch – Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Never mind that probably a quarter of the legislators tentatively support this thing only though legislative bribery. Doesn’t matter if the bill will increase health care costs, increase the federal deficit, and neither cure the underlying  rot in the system that is causing the incredible inflation in medical cost, nor stopping the inevitable train wreck of the medical system when that inflation bankrupts the insurance companies which, much like the obviousness and inevitable doom of the U.S auto industry, everyone saw coming.  Sure.   Go ahead.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

On the bright side. Doing so will make the Democratic party irrelevant for years to come. Now, how to make the Republican just as irrelevant….

My First Time… Changing A Head Gasket

I was reading this thread about a mechanic who accidentally switched the left and right heads on an EA 82 Subaru engine, and started to wonder what my worst repair blunder might have been. Most of us back yard mechanics have installed distributor 180 deg off, screwed up on the timing belts at least once, or some other silly thing. I was wondering what memorable mishap you’ve done in the shop.

I think my favorite would be the first time I ever replaced a head gasket. The year is 1986. I’m in college and of course very poor. The car that got me started on my long ascendancy to shade-tree mechanic uber-master was my 1976 Honda Civic, one of the ones with the little 1200 CC  CVCC four banger under the hood (great little engine). After noticing excessive smoke coming out the exhaust pipe for a few days, the car suddenly won’t turn over. Try to start it, and the engine goes “kunk” and won’t turn. Read more »